Backhanded condiment

Some of the effort expended during Poland’s presidency of the Council of Ministers to persuade us of the merits of Polish cuisine has been undermined.

The Polish presidency was keen to share with us recipes for oscypek, kiszka ziemniaczana, piróg bilgorajski and variations on kasza. But now the European Union’s Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF) has been notified by regulators in Poland that several companies have been selling de-icing road salt as table salt and it may have ended up in bread, cucumbers, sauerkraut and other products.

Polish prosecutors have begun legal action against three companies, and the country’s food inspection agency is now testing samples. In the meantime, products known to contain the wrong salt have been withdrawn from the market. Salt is widely used for non-food purposes, from drilling fluids in oil exploration to concrete mixing and the dyeing of textiles. But the type of salt used for these industrial purposes is different from that found on the table, and can be harmful if consumed by humans.